1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inkjet recording apparatus which ejects ink to form an image on a paper. More particularly, the invention relates to an inkjet recording apparatus having a storing section which contains waste ink discharged as a result of a recording head maintenance operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
When an inkjet recording apparatus according to the related art is used again after leaving it unused for a long time, in order to eliminate the effect of clogging of a multiplicity of ink ejection holes formed at the recording head thereof, a maintenance process is required prior to the restart of use, in which a negative pressure is applied to ink channels including the ink ejection holes to extract any ink staying in the channels. The extracted ink is stored in a waste ink tank in the printer rather than being discharged from the recording apparatus as waste ink.
When so-called edgeless printing is performed, since the ink ejection range exceeds the range of the printing paper, ink accumulated on the platen is collected as waste ink and stored in a waste ink tank.
Under the circumstance, Japanese Patent No. 3284453 (FIGS. 2 and 3), JP-A-11-129504 (FIGS. 1, 2, and 3) and JP-A-2001-171148 (FIG. 6) disclose techniques to prevent leakage of such waste ink.
The point of the disclosure of Japanese Patent No. 3284453 is to divide a waste ink containing chamber into a plurality of compartments. The point of the disclosure of JP-A-11-129504 is to divide an absorbing foam that fills a waste ink containing chamber into two parts and to provide a space between those parts, and a configuration is also disclosed, in which waste ink flows into one of the parts when the waste ink can no longer be absorbed by the other part. JP-A-2001-171148 discloses a configuration in which a waste ink storing chamber is divided into a plurality of compartments by partition walls and in which each of the compartments is filled with foam for absorbing waste ink.